SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Gold Dust

Gloves.

I must have over two hundred pairs in my dresser. Warm woollen mittens for winter, comfortable fleece gloves for evenings at home, luxurious satin and silk ones to accompany evening dresses, brightly coloured cotton pairs for gardening, cold white latex ones for work…

Gloves are my obsession. They’ve become my trademark. I cannot leave the house without them. "Allergies" is my excuse, but very few people know what they are really for, what they are really hiding.

My name is Emily. I’m 32 years old and single. I’m a gynaecologist and specialized obstetric, which is a fancy word for a doctor specialized in the delivery of babies and the care for both mother and child, before and shortly after the birth.

I am a doctor, but I’m a riddle to the medical world.

I am perfectly normal and healthy.

But I happen to have the hands of a centenarian.

25.

That’s the number of liver spots I currently have on my right hand.

17.

That’s the number of liver spots I currently have on my left hand.

Some aren’t bigger than a pin, others are small circles of misery, but all of them are constantly expanding and multiplying.

I do not bother to count the wrinkles or try and stretch out the excess skin over my perfectly young bones anymore. Nor do I look at the meandering veins on the back of my hands, avoiding to see them as the horrible aged lifelines that they are. I also stopped checking for cracks and splits in my yellow fingernails. It’s too depressing. The joint ache and rheumatic pain isn’t too bad as long as I try not to focus on it. I make sure my hands -even when gloved- are never on any photographs and when I look in the mirror I automatically hide them behind my back, trying to only concentrate on the rest of my body that is not running ahead of time like they are.

My hands…my monstrosity to the outside world.

They have not always been like this, though.

"In life there are two types of people, Givers and Takers." My mom used to tell me time and again while I was growing up, "Make sure you're one of the Givers, Emy. Don't be a Taker. Never be a Taker."

My mom died when I was sixteen, a couple of months after my father had passed away from cancer. She had dedicated her entire life to the care of her husband and she had constantly stood by him during the worst of times. After my father died, she suddenly found herself with time on her hands, time to do something for herself. And that made her horribly nervous. She died shortly after.

To my mom's standards, she had been a Giver all her life, even after my father had been taken from us. I decided to be a Giver too and I chose to give the greatest gift of all: Life.

I was a brilliant student at med school, working hard to be at the top of the class, always striving to be better and know more. I felt I owed it to my parents somehow, even though people told me I was working myself to pieces so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of my own sorrow. They might have been right at the time, but for me the most important thing back then was to make sure others would never have to feel the bitterness of loss like I had. I was going to show the world what a real Giver could do.

My teachers were astounded at my high marks and said I was a natural once I started my internship. And it all did come natural to me. I did study hard, but back then I was already working more on my instincts than my knowledge and this method has not failed me since. I was 26 when I graduated and got work offers from all the major hospitals and even from some very exclusive health clinics where, if we may believe the tabloids, some of the world's greatest celebrities came to give birth. The university wanted to keep me on as a researcher after I graduated with the promise of a teaching position after a couple of years, but I loved being out there, helping babies into the world and smile at hearing every new born cry.

I was on a high back then. Everything worked out fine. I was immediately highly respected in the first hospital I started working and even senior physicians came to ask my advice on difficult deliveries. I never questioned myself as to why I was gifted with this ability to "sense" what was wrong with a pregnancy or to know exactly what to do at the right time. I called it “Intuition” and left it at that. My male colleagues, although daunted at first at the quick ascent to success I was making, started to show an interest even out of the work floor and if I hadn't been too busy working all the time, I would have been interested and have started a life of my own.

I can't really say when it first happened, but I think it all started a couple of months after I started working as the head of the gynaecology department at Saint Matthews Hospital. I was called "The miracle doctor" by then because I had not lost a mother or a child in any of the deliveries I'd done so far and had gladly accepted the senior position I had been offered in one of the most renown hospitals of the country, a great honour for someone my age. I worked almost around the clock when I first started working there, just stopping for a couple of hours to catch some sleep every night and then restarting the circle of doing ultrasounds, assisting births and monitoring the so called "problem babies".

I remember one specific evening in the scrubbing room just before another delivery when I suddenly noticed how painful my hands were feeling while scrubbing. I stretched my fingers a couple of times to pump the blood back in, thinking my hands were just tired from the day's work, when one of the nurses looked over my shoulder and kindly remarked that she knew a very good cream for tired looking hands and that she could bring it for me if I was interested. I remember laughing and telling her I was not the type to use beauty products, but did have a closer look at my hands when she turned to enter the operating theatre. When I held them up in the light I noticed for the first time that my hands really did look tired and dry. The skin had dry patches here and there and it looked wrinkled at my joints. My fingernails didn't look very cared for either and I found a couple of brownish spots on the back of my hands that I quickly dismissed as freckles.

Some people had told me I was "pretty", but I was not really interested in the way I looked. I had no time to read beauty magazines and follow the latest trends and fashions. To myself, I always looked neutral and yes, even a bit dull. But maybe the nurse was right...maybe I did have to care for my appearance a bit more now that I often featured in medical magazines and was even asked to give an interview for a tv-programme about "miracle child births". It wouldn't do for Saint Matthews' youngest senior staff member to look like some sort of trollop, now would it?

After that first moment of realization I started to give my appearance more thought and began visiting beauty salons. From that time on my hair was always nicely styled, my clothes looked fashionable but distinguished and I even ventured into the world of make-up...But nothing I did brought back the youth and fitness in my hands. I tried every available cream on the market, from the very cheap ones to the really exclusive ointments that promise you eternal youth, but cost half a pay-check for a ridiculously small pot. Nothing helped. My hands just kept on getting worse...

I started monitoring their decline closely. Every week or so now my skin was worsening and the liver spots -as I had now decided to rightly call them- were getting more visible and larger. My bones ached more often now, even if I was not working, and I found my fingernails growing yellow, even though I applied thick layers of protective gloss every other day.

When make-up, all kinds of cream and -in the end- even laser treatment wouldn't help me, I bought my first pair of day-time gloves. Immediately after, I made an appointment with one of my colleagues at the hospital, doctor Michael Richardsen, a well-known and highly respected dermatologist.

I was tested for every possible variant of the dreaded skin cancer, even though Michael couldn't explain the fact of why the cancer would only affect my hands. All tests came back negative. I did not have cancer.

I was tested for every possible kind of skin allergy, from very innocent ones like eczema to very rare types of skin allergy and diseases. None of the tests showed any results.

I was even tested for progeria, the accelerated aging disease in children, although I would have been the first adult to ever develop the genetic disease since it only affects babies around the age of two. Nobody had ever heard of "local progeria" either and definitely not in a 30-year old, otherwise perfectly healthy woman. I showed none of the other symptoms of progeria so the tests came back negative again.

My skin got punctured, cut, scrutinized and several samples were taken for biopsy research. I had CAT-scans and several internal examinations, but all of those just affirmed the fact that I was as healthy as possible, except for those two rapidly aging hands...

I remember the day that Michael put a hand on my shoulder and shook his head in defeat. "I'm sorry, Emily. We've tried absolutely everything in the book, but we can't seem to find what's wrong with you. I'm afraid we cannot help you any further...".

I smiled at him, took out a pair of brand new gloves and put them on. Although my face was a mask to the outside world and I answered all questions about my new glove "addiction" as a necessary precaution for my so-called allergy problem, I was at the brink of depression.

I am not a religious person, but the night Michael told me the final news, that there were no more test to be done and still nobody could come up with a diagnosis, I took my mother's bible from the bookshelf where it had stood idle since she died. I still don't know why I chose this particular book, maybe I was looking for some comfort, maybe I was looking for a miracle...Who can tell? I started thumbing through the pages lazily and without direction, not knowing what to look for exactly when the book suddenly fell open at a certain place. It was not something on the pages itself that caught my eye, but rather the small note that was stuck in between them. It was a small and old card on which my mother's curly handwriting was very recognizable. I read the words on the yellowing card out loud and my breath choked in my throat. This is what it said:

“Be a Giver in life, my sweet Emy, never a Taker.
What you are blessed to give is a gift, not a curse.
Learn to see it as such.
Pay the price, even though you might think it too high.
If so, then look around you and think again.
For when is something too high for a true Giver?
Learn to put aside the Self and see the great design
And only then you’ll understand
You hold Gold Dust in your hands.”

And then, suddenly, I did understand…

When do people regard others as selfish and egoistic, I wonder? How much would you give of yourself to others? Where would you draw the line? Would you for example give away all your belongings, all your money if you knew it would mean someone else is going to die if you don’t? What else would you donate? Would you give up all your time and energy to ensure the life of others, meaning you can never have one of your own? What else? Would you give up your youth, your own happiness, your smile...your hands, perhaps?

Life is the biggest Taker of them all. It is up to everyone to decide how much we'll let it take from us...except for me, it seems.

It's as simple as a money for goods transaction, really...You give the baker money and he gives you a loaf of bread so you can eat and thus provide your body with the necessary nutrition. Life itself has to be fed constantly too and it needs donors...people like me...people that ensure life gets into the world, but at a cost…always at a cost. Life takes its nutrition from its suppliers.

But I wonder...what if I decide not to play this game anymore? What if I take matters in my own hands -no pun intended at all- and I choose not to follow my Intuition, not to be the miracle doctor anymore? Would this curse/gift be reversible? Would I gain back my youth if I choose not be a Giver anymore? Who would blame a brilliant doctor for one mistake? Everyone is waiting to see my first screw-up anyway, so why not give in? You can’t save them all now, can you?…

The problem is I can.

I notice I have trouble bending my wrists today, while I’m trying to pick up the latest edition of “Medical’s Best”, the one with my face on the cover. On closer inspection, I also notice that some of the liver-spots seem to have multiplied and made the jump from my hand to my forearm where the skin is getting paler and drier by the hour. I try to pull up my gloves till they cover the new spots, but they won’t reach that high.

As I am struggling with the fabric of my gloves my beeper goes off, telling me I’m needed in room 5 to assist in the delivery of one of the difficult cases. We’re talking a young women here, almost 22 years old, probably her first baby. She has been brought in half an hour ago and if they are already beeping me, things must be serious.

The scans that are shoved in front of the lamps while I prepare for surgery tell me that the umbilical cord is wringing itself tight around the baby’s neck, slowly strangling the unborn child like a python. Is this Nature trying to tell me something? Is this child not meant to be born then? I push the thoughts aside and start monitoring the child as I prepare the young woman for the necessary caesarean. The baby’s heart rate is very slow and the beats sound too faint to wait any longer. This child has to be born right now or it won’t make it…

…or it won’t make it…

Is this my sign? Is this where I make my choice? Is this where I return the Gift? Is this where I become a Taker?

I smile as I push against the front doors of the Hospital and step out into the sunlight at the end of my shift.

Above, in room 203 a young mother is recovering from a straining caesarean while her brand new daughter is trying out the extents of her lungs for the first time. It was a very close call. They all say it’s a miracle.

And me? I’m off to the department store to buy my first pair of shoulder-length gloves.